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Dr. Yugal Kishore Mishra
The rules with regard to food etc. for the Jaina ascetic is also rigorous. The ascetic has to beg his food as begging is an essential condition of renunciation, The ascetic has to beg only such foods which are not expressly prepared for him.15 He avoids impure and unacceptable food 6 and receives only so much as is sufficient for the sustenance of his life merely.
The ascetic has to remain wandering from place to place except while observing cāturmāsa during the rains. This is also permissible only to avoid injury to living beings and seeds which are originated at the time.
The Jaina ascetic is ordained to practise several austerities among which fasting assumes special importance. It is the most potent means of self-realisation. Fasting in its most extreme form results in sallekhanā which is also designated as Samādhi-marana or Samnyāsa-marana. It is practised in the last moments of the ascetic's life and consists in voluntary submission to peaceful death by overcoming the cardinal passions and attachment to the world. The rigorous asceticism thus practised by the Jaina ascetics is, however, only a mean to an end and not an end in itself.
Asceticism primarily consists in the denial of natural desires with the sole purpose of attaining some ideal set for life. But the customs pertaining to diet, robe, dwelling, etc. connected with the ascetic mode of life also play a significant part in ascetic life. They in their true forms become a means of self-discipline. But devoid of this ascetic motive proper, the customs become completely irrelevant and useless.
Customs ordinarily have the tendency to symbolization and conventionality. The shaving of head, peculiar clothing or even nakedness etc. are mere symbols which were once the expression of an attempt at self-mortification. Fasting etc. aimed at controlling the senses. Even self-torture was intended to distract the thoughts from the external objects. All customs, thus are originally aids in the achievement of the spiritual purpose, which when conventionalized, loose the core spirit behind them. The core ascetic motive in non-attachment and divested of it, customs become irrelevant and meaningless.
So the outward marks of the ascetic have no value of their own, except in so far as they serve the religious purpose. Asceticism should not therefore be identified with some of the outward formalities. In the Jaina scriptures, the external marks of the ascetics are interpreted only as their distinguishing characteristics, useful for religious life." The Tirtharkaras have already declared that it is the right
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